As recently as a generation or two ago, the mainstream of American politics observed an important limit whereby domestic politics did not operate beyond the nation’s boundaries. This did not mean that there weren’t sharp differences and vigorous debate about foreign policy, often along party lines. There always have been those, going back to differing Federalist and Democratic-Republican sentiments toward Britain and France in the early days of the republic. The limit was nonetheless based on a recognition of a common national interest in America’s encounter with the rest of the world and a belief that this interest takes precedence over more parochial and partisan interests. Flowing from this recognition was a felt need to present a single face to the outside world and to avoid washing dirty domestic political linen on foreign soil.

The limit also included the concept that party lines should not cross, in either direction, the nation’s boundaries. This concept has been even stronger in the United States than in most European democracies. There has been a traditionally American aversion to participation in transnational partisan movements such as the Socialist International, and not just because that particular movement is socialist.

In modern times one of the foremost personifications of this limit was Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg, who, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, worked with the Truman administration in establishing the post-World War II international political and economic architecture. His role included active participation and not just congressional approval. Vandenberg was, for example, a U.S. delegate to the founding conference of the United Nations. The guiding principle of Vandenberg’s conduct on these issues was, in his words, that “we must stop partisan politics at the water’s edge.”

Today one can find discouraging examples of disdain for Vandenberg’s principle. There was, for example, the egregious open letter to Iran three years ago that Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) devised and most Senate Republicans signed. It basically said to the Iranian regime that it should not take as a credible commitment whatever the incumbent U.S. administration was saying at the negotiating table.

The Vice President’s Trip

This month’s trip by Vice President Mike Pence to the Middle East provided another demonstration of how far things have come from Vandenberg’s principle. The trip also demonstrated how, on one foreign policy issue in particular, the principle had been abandoned some time ago even though many on one side of that issue do not want to admit it.

Early in the trip Pence held a meet-and-greet with U.S. troops at an undisclosed location near the Syrian border. This sort of meeting with American service members overseas is traditionally a way for senior leaders to express, on behalf of themselves and the American people, appreciation for the troops’ work and sacrifices. It is supposed to be an apolitical morale booster. It is one of the last places where partisan attacks should intrude. But Pence used the occasion to lambaste Democrats for the government shutdown. Senior staffers for previous vice presidents, both Republican and Democratic, appropriately criticized Pence for his very inappropriate abuse of the occasion.

Then came Pence’s speech to the Israeli Knesset. Pence—notwithstanding his performance from time to time of clean-up duty back home after some of Donald Trump’s rhetorical excesses—did nothing to limit the damage from Trump’s recent divisive proclamation regarding Jerusalem. Instead, Pence exacerbated the damage. He went all in with the Israeli right wing, who could not have loved the speech more if the Israeli prime minister’s office had drafted it. One of the leading hardliners in the ruling coalition, Naftali Bennett, said the speech “will go down in the history books of both nations.”

The most plausible interpretation of Pence’s primary motivation in designing the speech, replete with biblical references, was that he was speaking to American evangelical Christians whom Pence considers his primary domestic political base and of whom he is himself a member. Domestic political considerations (supplemented by personal religious sentiments) took precedence over well-considered conduct of relations with a foreign country, and did so in a way that advanced neither U.S. interests nor international peace. That Pence was aiming his remarks at American Christians, not Christians in the Holy Land where he was speaking, was reflected in how the latter were unsurprisingly critical of Pence for buying into the Israeli government position.

Pence’s vocal support of one side of a bitter conflict inside Israel and inside the Holy Land was further reflected by reactions to the speech within the Knesset. While right-wingers were joyfully singing along with this music to their ears, parliamentarians belonging to the Joint List, which predominantly represents Arab Israelis, held up signs in protest before they were ejected from the chamber. Whatever one may think about this protest, Pence’s reacting to the interruption by referring to Israel’s “vibrant democracy” was an insult, given that the lack of political rights of millions of Palestinian residents of territory Israel occupies is at the heart of what makes the conflict at hand so bitter.

Linked Partisanship

Political divisions over there are increasingly linked to political divisions over here. A new Pew survey of American public opinion shows a continued increase in partisan divisions in attitudes toward Israel and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Staunch support for Israel has become increasingly identified with the Republican Party; questioning of Israeli policy is to be found much more in the Democratic Party.

This whole picture suggests more than just partisan differences over foreign policy. Again, the United States has had plenty of those since its earliest days. The current administration has departed from the traditional limits in which internal political divisions were not permitted to cross the national boundaries, in one direction or another, to determine politics and policies on the other side of the boundary. There exists today what amounts to a two-nation Likud International, which is determining policy in both Israel and the United States toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of course, it is not called the Likud International, and there are several strands, including Pence’s evangelical Christianity, that weave into it on the American end. But both the nature of the political dynamics involved and the end result befit the name.

If there is a positive side to any of this, it may be to lay ever more bare, and to make obvious to more people than ever before, that the direction of U.S. policy on this issue has had far more to do with domestic politics and cross-boundary political intrusion than with any dispassionate and nonpartisan analysis of what would be in U.S. interests. As with any other foreign-policy issue, violation of the traditional American limits about national boundaries and political phenomena that should not cross them does not serve American interests well. Arthur Vandenberg would have understood.

Paul Pillar

Paul R. Pillar is Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies of Georgetown University and an Associate Fellow of the Geneva Center for Security Policy. He retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligence community. His senior positions included National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, Deputy Chief of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, and Executive Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence. He is a Vietnam War veteran and a retired officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Dr. Pillar's degrees are from Dartmouth College, Oxford University, and Princeton University. His books include Negotiating Peace (1983), Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (2001), Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy (2011), and Why America Misunderstands the World (2016).

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3 Comments

Great piece. One wonders whether Pence hopes to see Israel annex the West Bank, to help bring on the “end of days”. Does Pence believe Jews who fail to convert to Christianity will be condemned to hellfire?

Who writes the President’s and Vice President’s major speeches? And who gives them final approval? I imagine there is a small group doing the drafting and that the Chief of Staff gives the approval (with whatever consultation he decides). How about a piece exposing who these people are?
I find it hard to believe the VP wrote his own Knesset speech. He represented WH policy, not his own. Agree?

Back in the time of Vandenberg, when the US established the post-World War II international political and economic architecture, speaking with one voice was fine. But times change, as they always do. It’s a different world with US failures in evidence all over the place and different opinions on how to proceed. That’s quite human, isn’t it? And a logical situation given the times we live in.

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